A Preliminary Epidemiologic Study of Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder Relative to Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Disability Without Social Communication Deficits

J Autism Dev Disord. 2021 Aug;51(8):2686-2696. doi: 10.1007/s10803-020-04737-4. Epub 2020 Oct 9.

Abstract

The goal of this preliminary investigation was to compare demographic and clinical characteristics in a sample of children with likely Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder (SCD) (N = 117) to those in children with possible (N = 118) and some (N = 126) SCD traits, other developmental delay (DD) (N = 91) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (N = 642). We used data from the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED), a multi-site case-control study. Items reflecting SCD DSM-5 criteria were selected from an autism diagnostic measure, with SCD categories identified by creating quartiles. Our results suggest that SCD may fall along a continuum involving elevated deficits (in comparison to DD with no SCD) in social communication and restricted and repetitive behavior that do not reach the clinical threshold for ASD.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Epidemiological study; Pragmatics; Social communication disorder.

MeSH terms

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder / diagnosis
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder / epidemiology*
  • Autistic Disorder
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Cognition
  • Communication
  • Communication Disorders
  • Developmental Disabilities / diagnosis
  • Developmental Disabilities / epidemiology*
  • Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
  • Epidemiologic Studies
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Phenotype
  • Social Communication Disorder / diagnosis
  • Social Communication Disorder / epidemiology*